Japanese Artist Launches a Bonsai Tree, Plants Into Space

Launched into the stratosphere, these plants are literally out of this world.

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Japanese artists Makoto Azuma set out to send everyday objects to quite an unfamiliar location: space. Azuma and his team worked with JP Aerospace on the project, called Exobiotanica, to launch a bonsai tree in a metal frame and an arrangement of flowers into the stratosphere.

"The best thing about this project is that space is so foreign to most of us, so seeing a familiar object like a bouquet of flowers flying above Earth domesticates space, and the idea of traveling into it," JP Aerospace owner and founder John Powell tells The New York Times.

For the bouquet, Azuma's creation included about 30 varieties of flowers. "I am using brightly colored flowers from around the world so that they contrast against the darkness of space," he tells the Times.